1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to a reproducing apparatus, a reproducing method, and a reproducing program which can selectively reproduce a predetermined portion of audio data recorded in a recording medium.
2. Description of the Related Arts
In recent years, many portable reproducing apparatuses each using a small hard disk drive as a recording medium have been put into practical use as products. According to the small hard disk drive, since a recording capacity is equal to a value within a range from a few GB (gigabytes) to about tens of GB and a large number of content data, for example, hundreds to thousands of content can be recorded, such hard disk drives have rapidly been spread. According to such a reproducing apparatus, since its casing is small and light-weighted, content formed by audio data such as music pieces or the like is recorded into the recording medium, the recording medium is carried out of doors together with the reproducing apparatus, and the music pieces recorded in the recording medium are reproduced in the open air and can be enjoyed.
In the case of recording a large number of music pieces into the recording medium and using them as mentioned above, it is demanded that an interface which selects and designates the recorded track music pieces can promptly select desired content. Hitherto, there has been used a method whereby a cursor of a content list displayed in a display unit is moved by using a rotary wheel or a multi-directional key which instructs the vertical or vertical/horizontal directions, or the like, thereby selecting a desired track. For example, the content corresponding to a cursor position is reproduced by pressing a play key.
In the case where a large number of tracks have been recorded in the recording medium, there is such a situation that the user does not know all album names or content names (music piece names) recorded in the recording medium. In many cases, the user does not know text information such as content names or the like although he knows melodies or the like. Further, the portable reproducing apparatus is often used during the movement such as walking or the like of the user. It is often difficult to select desired content by using the text information as a hint.
In such a case, since the user selects the desired content while reproducing one by one the audio data recorded in the recording medium, it is very annoying. To solve such a problem, a technique in which with respect to each content of the album, predetermined portions of the audio data are set as highlight portions, and the predetermined portions are sequentially reproduced has been disclosed in Patent Document 1 (JP-A-2003-50816). According to the method disclosed in Patent Document 1, since the user can automatically confirm the contents of each content of the album, he can select a desired music piece without annoying.